Got banned from a woodworking group for saying a $40 garage sale Stanley No. 4 beats a $350 Lie-Nielsen for 90% of beginners, so let's fight about it | Banned But True - Free To Speak
Got banned from a woodworking group for saying a $40 garage sale Stanley No. 4 beats a $350 Lie-Nielsen for 90% of beginners, so let's fight about it
One side says a beginner should learn to sharpen and tune a cheap old plane because the skill matters more than the tool, the other says you should just buy the premium one so you can skip the frustration and actually build stuff, and I want to know which one you'd hand a 15 year old with a $50 budget.
Watched my kid mess with a beat up old No. 4 for a weekend before I caved and got him something decent, and honestly the cheap one taught him more in two days than the nice one did in two weeks. Struggling with a bad plane forces you to figure out why it's bad, which is a thing you never learn if the tool just works out of the box. So yeah, $50 budget, hand them the rusty one and a sharpening stone.